"I'd like to say that we never stop fighting, but sometimes we do to play baseball," said team superstar Steve Holcombe, who garnered his second career Player of the Week Award during the hot streak and also, on his spare time, bagged four greenies (the current slang for decomposing zombies). "We have a pretty good team here, and we're playing really good ball lately."
Holcombe is right: by the numbers, the Zombies have been one of the best teams in the BBA so far. The team is second in runs scored and fourth in runs allowed, and that's good enough for anyone. Considering how badly they started, Jacksonville has been absolutely on fire.
"We try to not use the term 'on fire' as much as possible," said third baseman Pepe Aragon, whose star turn last year appears to have stuck. "After all, there are a lot of those lit outside the city, tire fires, grease fires, signal fires. But we are playing amazing baseball."
The story might start to get even better, as the Zombies have just called up one of the team's top two prospects, Benedict Daniel. Daniel, Jacksonville's first round pick just two years ago, has risen through the minors quickly and has been historically productive at AAA Gotham City this year, hitting an absurd 11 homers in 22 games, a 14-WAR pace. Daniel will replace the struggling and now injured Juan Orquiz, who will probably be demoted when active.
"Benedict has been just amazing this year," said Zombies GM Aaron Weiner. "We were definitely going to bring him to the big club anyway, but Juan's injury opens the door to see what he'll do. Benedict has been exactly the player we drafted him to be at every level of the minor leagues so far, and we're excited to see what he'll do for us."
Daniel's power bat is expected to help the Hurricanes, who are just 13th in the JL in home runs so far. He is also a much more capable defensive player than either Holcombe or Orquiz, and he has shown consistent power and an excellent batting eye in his two-year career. It is also believed that the Hurricanes might call up top prospect Gabriel Manuel from AAA this year as well, though second baseman Don Colbert has been one of the best players at his position for two years running now and shortstop Billy McKay, who spent much of last year on the IR, has not missed a step, hitting .284 for the Zombies so far.
"We've got a ton of talent, but it's important that we use it correctly," said Weiner. "It's a good problem to have."
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